


The Secrets We Keep

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9230960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: This isn’t the way it was supposed to go. This position, the mission, this was her shot at redemption.





	

Kendra Shaw clicks the wireless off with a jab of her finger, bile and resentment rising already at the inspirational speech from their new commander.

Adama Jr.’s the third since Helena Cain, and pretty sentiments aside, Kendra harbors no illusions that he’ll be any different. Hell, with entitlement and privilege coming out of his pretty boy ears, he’ll likely be the worst yet.

Benson eyes her, and she speaks without thinking for once, the need already prickling her nerve endings making her sloppy. “The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh, Gus?” She regrets the bitter candor immediately, even though he smiles and agrees before turning and filing out.

Shift ends, and Kendra heaves a sigh of relief and reaches for oblivion. What should the head of the beast matter to her, anyway, now that she’s peeling potatoes in the dungeon for the rest of her blessed frakking days?

***  
Twenty-eight hours later, when she gets the summons to his quarters, Kendra curses the slip again. Cain made sure the walls had ears and she frakking knew that. Still, what more can he do to her, short of sending her out the airlock?

She almost wishes the possibility of that frightened her.

Head clouded as she turns into the hatch, she pulls up short to avoid nearly getting mowed down by a blonde with murder in her eye as she stomps out of the commander’s office. Mentally she rolls her eyes, but then Adama summons her in, and she goes like the good little public servant she was once upon a time.

He’s not what she expects. Lee Adama levels the charges from Fisk and Garner at her, but he also seems to actually care what she thinks. He’s man enough not to flinch when she tells him without any sugarcoating too. She’s particularly proud of the bit about Daddy tossing him the keys to his own shiny new battlestar.

If it’s a test (and it is), he passes with a smirk and an oblique rejoinder about her not being a disappointment.

Little does he know.

She doesn’t really take the man for a fool until he offers her the XO job, though. Strategically it’s a clever plan, but she can’t imagine what made him think _she_ was the one for the job. If he’s expecting his new XO to be some great buddy to the crew, the kind who spends her nights playing triad and downing ambrosia in the rec room, she’s the last person for the job.

But…it’s flattering. Something stirs in her, a memory, the ghostly crackle of ambition that her former self once thrived upon. Commander Adama goes on, talking about restoring pride to the crew and insisting that he’s not Cain. She manages not to snort with laughter at that. As if it wasn’t frakking obvious.

Pride squares her shoulders, her spine stiffening at his words. Cain’s legacy.

The metal lid of the jewelry case slams shut with a snap as she grabs the pips before he can think better of it and take them back.

***

The days that follow her appointment do nothing to dissuade her first impression of Lee Adama. But serving under Helena Cain taught her to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open. So she does.

She watches how he pauses a half-second before he issues orders to Hoshi or Stanger or any of the other Pegasus officers in CIC. She watches as he shifts restlessly behind the console, as if he’s unsure where to plant his feet. And she watches as he grins and smiles at the incessant jock banter streaming over the comms from the CAG.

Kara Thrace, the blonde with the chip on her shoulder, wouldn’t be Kendra’s choice to command the air group. But she remembers hearing scuttlebutt about the woman. How her flying skills impressed Admiral Cain so much, she promoted her to captain and was grooming her… The same way she once groomed Kendra Shaw. She wonders what the commander—both commanders—see in her.

It’s been so busy the past few days she hasn’t been able to escape to the kitchens. Kendra grips the console firmly so her fingers stop shaking and swallows hard as the throaty laughter of Thrace buzzes through the comms, making the commander’s face light up.

“She ever shut up?” Adama turns, one eyebrow raising in surprise. “Chatter like that breeds sloppiness, gonna set a bad example for the other pilots.”

An echo of her laughter lurks behind the evenly spoken words of the commander’s response. “Well as long as she sets a good example with her flying, we’ll come out ahead.”

_Interesting._

The dradis blooms with the arrival of cylon raiders and Starbuck’s all business now, so Kendra lets it drop. She eyes Adama as he orders a retreat, telling Hoshi to “watch out for their people” with the cover fire, his voice warming as he says they’ll jump as soon as they “recover our birds.”

Kendra frowns. “Sir, shouldn’t we launch alert vipers and engage?”

His answer is negatory and she starts to protest again when Adama zaps her with a quelling look. Kendra tightens her hands on the console, knuckles turning white, and swallows the words about to stream off her tongue.

It’s too soon. Wiser to pick her battles.

Hoshi reports a failure in the main navigational computer. If they can’t resolve it, they won’t be able to get the jump coordinates. Kendra can almost hear Cain in her head, already snapping, “Fix the problem, lieutenant! And do it RFN.” But Lee Adama is not Helena Cain. He’s hustling over to Hoshi’s station to consult with the junior officer and find a solution.

Starbuck comes back over the comms saying the raiders are all over them and they can’t break free. She squints at dradis. The pilots are racing back to the ship, leading the enemy gunfire right behind them. Without pausing for thought, Kendra barks out a command to the artillery officer to fire at close range. She has only one priority: No matter what, they can’t let the Cylons get past their firing solution.

The ensign hesitates, his eyes skidding over to the commander, who is oblivious to their exchange, still huddled with Hoshi over the board. “Now, ensign!” Kendra commands and the man spurs into action finally. Then Lee calls for Hoshi to jump the ship.

Her grip eases, blood returning to the thin skin near her knuckles, and Kendra nearly smiles.

***  
She and the commander go to the hangar deck, and Adama immediately heads for the corner where a medic is trying to treat Thrace with little success. Without hesitating, he reaches down and unsnaps the metal collar from her suit as the woman starts talking again, fury flashing on her striking features. Kendra lowers her head and studies her clipboard, but keeps an ear peeled. She can hear the CAG hissing angrily and Lee’s clipped tones following, even though she can’t make out all the words from this distance. She does manage to catch his voice rising as he says, “Major Shaw has the authority to make any call she feels necessary to protect this ship.”

A small frisson of something—warmth, pride maybe—unfurls in her chest, but the argument is less effective on Thrace. The woman bolts up, drawing Kendra’s gaze, and gets right in the commander’s face. There’s less than a hand’s width between their bodies, and their nearly matching heights brings their faces within inches of one another. The tableau is striking, and if Kendra didn’t know better she’d think it a tiff between lovers, not colleagues.

She wonders.

Her assessment seems even more accurate when Adama reaches out, one hand still clutching her flight collar, the other settling on her upper arm in a clearly consolatory gesture. She knocks his hands away, her face pained, and Kendra looks back to her clipboard as Thrace heads in her direction, girding herself for a fight.

Thrace stalks straight over to her, though she stops at a distance that’s at least twice what she left between her and the commander, and barks that Kendra almost got them killed. She listens, keeping her own temper under reins, and in the coolest voice she can muster reminds the captain that questioning orders is a bad idea on the Pegasus. Thrace is still glaring at her when Adama rushes over, admonishing them both to remember their positions and act like officers in front of the curious eyes of the deck crew.

Thrace ignores him, her eyes never leaving Kendra’s, and damned if the woman doesn’t start to smile, like a mountain lion that’s cornered its prey. Kendra straightens.

Thrace may have iron balls, but she has a steel core, forged in the fire of Helena Cain’s wrath. The captain has no idea who she’s dealing with. She’s about to issue another threat when a loud noise from the end of the bay diverts their attention.

The next few hours are spent dealing with the Galactica cylon’s revelation about the hybrid, but when the Admiral and President dismiss them, Kendra doesn’t miss the way the Commander and the Captain fall into lockstep, matching stride to stride, hushed voices murmuring to each other, oblivious to all around them.

It seems all is forgiven.

***

After that, she can’t help but notice them. In morning briefings, Thrace makes herself at home, slouching all over the black leather couch in Adama’s quarters as if it has her name on it. When they discuss ops, he looks to her, one eyebrow raised whenever he introduces a mission plan, like he’s just waiting for Thrace to find the hole in it. (She usually does.) She finishes his sentences, hands him model ships without him asking for them. On the comms, they use each other’s given names almost as often as their rank or Thrace’s callsign.

It’s amusing, mainly because neither one seems half aware of what they’re doing.

She doesn’t pay it much mind, her head already filled with half-drawn plans for the new mission the Admiral has asked them to undertake. The commander has charged her with coming up with the strategy, and for the first time in a long time, Kendra feels something more than indifference or rote duty propelling her through the day. 

It takes a week to consider all the potential failings, the loopholes, the possible outcomes and consequences and it’s late into the mid-night watch, when she’s satisfied that everything has been accounted for, that all final details are in place. Kendra yawns and stretches, smiling as she leaves the lightboard and ships behind her, set for presentation tomorrow, and heads back to her rack.

The corridors are quiet at this hour, and her footsteps echo loudly on the metal decking as she passes the officers gym. The hatch is partially open, light spilling into the hall, and she frowns, wondering who is working out at this hour, a stern warning about squandering precious rack time already forming on her lips. Her eye follows the beam, head turning, then arresting at what she sees.

The commander and the CAG are sparring. Or _were_ sparring. They are merely standing at the moment, limbs locked in a tight clench. They’re both out of breath, sweat-sheened bodies heaving together, the movement synchronized. And they’re staring directly into one another’s eyes. She can’t see Starbuck’s face because of the way they’re angled, but Adama’s is… she has no words. The emotion on his face is startling in its intensity. It nearly renders him unrecognizable, in fact. This is not the man she knows from the CIC. The one whose every word is deliberate, carefully chosen to maintain diplomacy, to facilitate an easy camaraderie and cajole obedience from the Pegasus crew.

No, this man is… desperate. There is a rawness, a hunger on Commander Adama’s face. He _wants_.

The depth of emotion is startling, but even more surprising for Kendra, it kindles something long buried in herself. She knows that feeling, to burn with desire. Not for a man, or a woman, but for something else entirely. 

Once upon a time she had wanted things. She’d had actual plans. So many. Kendra can recall, sharp as daylight, marching into that transfer station on Virgon to come to her posting here, bragging to the bartender about succeeding Cain, picturing a desk in the Fleet Command HQ with her name on it. She’d yearned for success, achievement.

For a moment, she is transported back in time to that younger self. She is that girl once more, who felt things, who had plans and goals and purpose, and wasn’t just marking time in a war without end.

Then a marine moves by her in the corridor, coughing loudly as he passes, and she startles, head jerking, reverie breaking. When she turns her head back to the gym, Adama and Thrace are gone.

She wonders fleetingly if they’re off to find a rack, and frowns at the thought. Not because she particularly cares who the Commander is frakking this week (though she does know about his little bridge bunny on Galactica), but because a relationship with the CAG would just be messy and unprofessional. Needlessly complicated.

Kendra makes a mental note to pay a bit closer attention to the two of them.

***

Her presentation goes smoothly the next day, yet when she finishes, Commander Adama has reservations.

He asks who she plans to have pilot the raptor.

“Captain Thrace.” She doesn’t miss the surprise that flickers on his face. “No other pilot I can trust to pull this off.”

His response is measured and careful in delivery, as always, but the seeming intent of the words shocks her. “Well, then, I guess the question is whether or not I can trust you.”

Kendra blinks, and wonders if he’s aware of what he’s saying. She hears Gina—no, the cylon—in her head, “Here I thought we were being so discreet. Guess that’s hard when you really care for someone.”

It’s hardly her place to comment on a commanding officer’s personal relationship, but she bristles just the same. A biting retort about protecting the commander’s frak buddies not being in the job description forms on her tongue, but Kendra only gets as far as “Well, sir—” before he cuts her off, blindsiding her by asking her about the Scylla.

Immediately, he can feel the sweat pop on her brow, her tongue suddenly thick and heavy in her mouth. Her mind flashes to the carnage, all those bleeding civilians on the ground, and she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

Adama is waiting for her to confirm her involvement.

She reaches for the anger again, draws it around her like a cloak. “I am Cain’s legacy. I’m alive because of the choices she made. So is everyone else on this ship. Tell you something else? Cain wouldn’t have blinked twice at this plan. She knew that you don’t win battles, never mind morals, without risking lives.”

He simply raises a brow at her speech and Kendra grips the lightboard with sweaty palms. “Are you finished?”

“Yes, sir. If you’d like my resignation, you can have it.”

But he surprises her again, approving the plan, despite the contempt in his voice, as he accuses her of wanting to wallow in self-pity.

She nods and leaves, no intention of wallowing in anything but the sweet oblivion of the morpha dose stashed in the galley.

***  
Unfortunately, her plan is thwarted. She has unexpected company.

Kara Thrace catches her red-handed, grinning at discovering her XO’s dirty little secret and lobbing a barb about “Lee’s new XO” not being able to handle the pressure.

Two can play at that game. Kendra draws herself up, looks the woman in the eye, and watches closely as she says “Lee’s favorite pilot” might find herself scrubbing floors if she’s not careful.

She has to hand it to Starbuck; True to the rumors of her prowess at the game, the woman has one hell of a triad face. But that first second, when she’d mentioned the Commander’s name, there was something there—a flicker of awareness in those bright eyes, the giveaway curving of her lips in a softer smile before the wolfish grin that followed.

“You keep my secret, Sir? I’ll keep yours.”

The pilot leaves without waiting for affirmation. 

Kendra wonders exactly which secret she’s meant to be keeping.

***

Later, in her quarters, she can’t sleep. Kendra pulls out the knife, drags it slowly against her skin in a familiar ritual. The movement is soothing. The blade is sharp but it doesn’t cut her.

She hears Admiral Cain’s words in her head. You have to let go of the fear and embrace the anger. The anger is what keeps you alive. She’s kept it as a truth, even now, knowing everything she does about Cain. Kendra thinks about the Admiral’s anger and what she did to Gina.

Thinks about being Cain’s legacy.

Wonders if she would have done any of it differently.

The only fear Kendra has left is the fact that she doesn’t know the answer.

***

Twenty hours later, when she’s slumped against the wall in the research ship, blood pooling out of her gut, she hears Cain again in her head.

 _When you can be this, for as long as you have to be, then you’re a razor. This war is forcing us all to become razors. Because if we don’t, we don’t survive. And then we don’t have the luxury of becoming simply human again._

Kendra did what she had to do. She survived. But somehow she never had that luxury.

The mission’s gone FUBAR, those horrific experiments, the fried nuke detonator, Da Silva… and vaguely, like she’s underwater, she can hear Commander Adama’s staticky voice over the comm link. “Red 2, this is Pegasus actual. Get the XO, get your men, and get to the evac coordinates. Secure your men, and detonate the warhead using the manual trigger.” 

There’s a long pause, and she can see Thrace’s pale face wincing, eyes closed as she receives the orders. The radio crackles to life again, his voice softer this time, “Kara, I—” The captain’s face ripples at his words, transparent as glass in one shimmering moment, and Kendra can see it—all those messy, conflicting emotions: pain and desire and fear and love—flickering there.

Another long pause on the radio, then a sharper-voiced command. “Complete your mission, captain.”

Thrace tilts her head slightly, but simply raps out, “Understood.” The woman’s eyes open and the fear is gone. She’s a razor now.

The captain starts shepherding them toward the evac raptor, half-carrying Kendra, whose chest is heaving harder with every breath. This isn’t the way it was supposed to go. This position, the mission, this was her shot at redemption.

But it’s too late now. For all of it.

Her eyes fall on the nuclear pack.

Maybe not.

Starbuck gets the team loaded then turns back, “You too, Major. Let’s get—“

Kendra’s grip shakes slightly on the gun she’s aiming at Thrace. “You too, Captain. Leave the nuke, if you don’t mind.”

Her eyes go wide and she hisses. “What the frak are you doing?”

Shaw swallows, a wave of pain racking her as she shifts and pulls out Cain’s knife from her pocket. “Completing the mission.” She tosses the knife to Thrace. “Take it. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Major…” The woman’s voice is anguished, as she looks at the weapon in her hand. It’s not too late for Thrace. Maybe whatever that is between Thrace and the Commander, maybe it’s enough. Maybe Cain was wrong.

“I just gave you an order, Captain. Unless you wanna die, I suggest you obey it. Go,” Kendra growls and it works.

Thrace is already retreating towards the raptor as she asks, “Why?”

“You know damn well why.” Kendra’s not sure that’s even true, but time is running short. All her secrets will come out soon enough. Starbuck’s will too someday soon.

She hefts the nuke, stifling a groan. “Put on your suit, you’re about to run out of air.” Thrace does and Kendra salutes. “It’s been an honor, Captain.”

Thrace hesitates, but returns the salute, her face mournful and tugs on her helmet. She retreats, keeping eye contact with Kendra, even as she steps on to the raptor. The hatch closes and the ship takes off, and Kendra breathes a sigh of relief.

She staggers back through the ship to its command center. The hybrid’s watching her expectantly.

“All this has happened before and will happen again. Come in, Major. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

Kendra steps forward, one hand on the manual detonation trigger for the nuke. Pain blossoms anew, a fresh wave of it coursing through her, and the ship fades away, the hybrid tub transforming into a stately wooden desk. A shiny brass plaque bears her name on its polished surface.

Kendra smiles and steps into her rightful and long-awaited place at Fleet Command headquarters.


End file.
